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After being diagnosed with breast cancer, a Professor of English and Cultural Studies at The University of Western Australia sought solace in books - and ended up writing an inspirational account of how reading helped her survive.

Winthrop Professor Brenda Walker's book, Reading by Moonlight:  How Books Saved a Life affirms the importance of literature, particularly in difficult times.

Professor Walker, a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University and The University of Virginia, is the author of the novels Crush, One More River, Poe's Cat and The Wing of Night. The latter won the 2006 Nita B. Kibble Award and the 2007 Asher Literary Award and was shortlisted for the 2006 Miles Franklin Award.

Also a critic and essayist, Professor Walker is the editor of The Writer's Reader and the author of several short-stories and book chapters.  Her short story "Big Animals" is included in The Best Australian Stories 2008. Her research interests include 19 ^th and 20 ^th Century literature, Gothic literature, and modernist and contemporary narrative.

In Reading by Moonlight she introduces her readers to the authors she turned to during the stages of treatment - writers including Dante, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Beckett and Dickens.

"I found that the very process of reading - surrendering and then regathering yourself - echoes the process of healing," Professor Walker said.

"This is the story of the right book, or books," she writes in Reading by Moonlight .  "We each have one life, one share of action and vision and money; a single life for all our speech and thought, our decent gestures and the decisions that might undo us, our welcome or unwanted love, our parties that may or may not come off.  One life to satisfy our vast and human sense of voyaging.  With the right books, we find out what imaginary strangers have done with their share of this amazing thing, life."

Reading by Moonlight is published by Penguin Australia.

UWA Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Robson, said he was proud of Professor Walker's latest achievement: "Brenda is a vital member of our School of English and Cultural Studies who has made a significant contribution to Australian literature."

Media references

Winthrop Professor Brenda Walker (+61 8) 6488 2122
(UWA School of English and Cultural Studies)
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716